With increasing development of information industries and networks, the services provided through networks are becoming more and more popular in various applications. Nowadays, data center has been widely applied to cloud computing and large-scale data and application services in information technology (IT) operations. Generally, a power distribution shelf is used to distribute electric power among the computers or servers of the data center. For designing the power distribution shelf, the kind of utility power provided to the power distribution shelf and the location of the power distribution shelf should be determined in advance. Accordingly, an exclusive power distribution shelf is assembled. Therefore, the power distribution shelf cannot be used in another data center with different specifications.
Due to globalization, international corporations usually build many data centers in different countries or regions in order to increase the efficiency of the data centers. As known, the utility power specifications (e.g. 120/400 volt, 3-phase, 4-wire or 220 volt, single-phase, 2-wire) for different countries or regions may be distinguished. For complying with the utility power specifications, the data centers in different countries or regions have respective exclusive power distribution shelves. In case a power distribution shelf has a breakdown, the maintenance worker may replace the power distribution shelf with a new one that complies with the desired utility power specification. Therefore, the cost and difficulty associated with maintenance are increased.
For increasing the overall operating efficiency of the data center, the location of the data center may be changed. Since the utility power specification is changed accordingly, the original power distribution shelf of the data center cannot be used. It is necessary to purchase or design a new power distribution shelf to comply with the new utility power specification, which increases the cost and wastes resource.
For solving the above drawbacks, the manufactures usually produce many kinds of power distribution shelves in order to comply with different utility power specifications. Since different power distribution shelves have different component specification, the complexity of assembling the power distribution shelves and the fabricating cost are both increased.
Therefore, there is a need of providing an AC power adapter and a power distribution system employing the same to obviate the drawbacks encountered from the prior arts.